“#3: Be CasualWe’re moving into what I call the era of the “Casual Web” (and casual content creation). This is much bigger than the hobbyist web or the professional web. Why? Because people have lives. And now, people with lives also have broadband. If you want to hit the really big home runs, create services that fit in with—and, indeed, help—people’s everyday lives without requiring lots of commitment or identity change. Flickr enables personal publishing among millions of folks who would never consider themselves personal publishers—they’re just sharing pictures with friends and family, a casual activity. Casual games are huge. Skype enables casual conversations.”

The Web 2.0 Show Just found these guys doing a Web 2.0 show podcast. Haven’t listened to it yet but it seems like a pretty cool idea for a podcast. Will listen on my way home from work today.Update: Listened to their show on the way home from work last night and would highly recommend it. They’ve got a great interview up with Jason Calacanis in their most recent show. It’s great to see a show dedicated to all of the exciting things that are going on in web development today.

Om Malik on Broadband : � TiVo’s Adwords for TiVo Om Malik on TiVo’s Adwords for TiVo: “The Wall Street Journal reports (free link) that the DVR maker is working with three big media-buyers Interpublic Media, OMD and Starcom Media Vest Group and others like Comcast Spotlight ad-sales division on a new way to deliver ads to consumers, who are looking for a specific product. In other words its Adwords for Television. Type in BMW and commercials will appear in a special folder right next to saved television programs.”

Zatz Not Funny… TiVo CC Tagging Patent Application Dave Zatz has a post about TiVo’s latest patent, a patent for, “use of Closed Captioning meta-data as a means of communicating with the TiVo unit. For example, if the tag embedded in a regular Coke commercial appears during broadcast TV and I’ve opted-in to TiVo’s ad search, my box can replace the ad with additional/different Coke content that’s been previously downloaded.”

I thought for sure Google would win every time, but in my case Google and Yahoo! were pretty close. It would be nice to see the results beyond three though as I think you’d get a better sense of the first page relevency with say 10 results or so.

I’d love to see this done for Google Image, Yahoo! Images and Flickr Images ranked by interestingness. I think you’d get a clear winner in that case.

“We think that we can get share from the traditional stock photo agency but above all we will focus on the not yet targeted market that couldn’t afford photos before (SOHO and individuals for example). We think that microstock sites can capture up to 30 % of the existing market and create a new market that will be as big, if not bigger, than the one that already exists. Only one or two big micro stock sites will survive, I hope we will be one of them. “

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While it’s hard to conclude anything with certainty based on 12 month stock performance charts, Chris most likely is right.

I can’t help but think of the TV Broadcasting business in comparison to the Music business when Napster first reared it’s head and popularized digital music downloads. They are stuck in a catch 22. On the one hand there is no doubt that consumers are demanding their TV in different better ways. They are demanding control and are for the first time being given the tools to take that control. Timeshifting, placeshifting, competing digtial media (internet, blogs, podcasting, etc.), BitTorrent — all of these ultimately eat into the revenue of the TV broadcasters. And yet they can’t really bring us anything super compelling because even as they see their demise, they are addicted to the advertising revenue and to a degree the DVD revenue that they know will still last for several more years.

I’d like to say I feel their pain but quite frankly I don’t. When rather than give me as a consumer something worthwhile and exciting they give me BS talk about how “God intended” for us to watch TV “live,” it just makes me gloat that much more in their demise.

And I smile as I realize that here it is Sunday night, a time when I was once sitting on my couch watching 60 Minutes with commercials, and instead I’m sitting here at my PC having just finished my FlickrNation podcast, with a nice glass of burgundy, kids asleep, blogging about the decline of the broadcasting business and listening to a kick ass cover version of Van Morrison’s Bright Side of the Road by the Hothouse Flowers. And 60 Minutes has still recorded and I may or may not watch it later this week depending on what’s on it — but most certainly without the commercials.

Damn, this long tail thing sure is working out well.

“Let’s enjoy it while we can. Help me share my load. From the dark end of the street to the bright side of the road.”